001We're going to call this meeting to order. As you can see, we're a little sparse right now. Um we have two um board members that are in route and then we have three board members that unfortunately will not Oh, one of our board members is here. >> Welcome. Yeah. And we should have our board member Cardi coming soon. Um unfortunately board member Flores uh Frost and uh Armistid are not able to be with us today but um with uh party uh member party we should have a porum. So we'll uh go ahead and do and um we will have our Spanish interpretation. So um that will be available for the board meeting for those viewing online. Uh and um last name for internet and then we will go on to um do the pledge of
002allegiance. So if I could all have you stand your right hand. And um so our next item are changes to the agenda which we do not have any changes to the agenda. So we will continue on with uh president and board comments. So, is anyone on the board would has any comments? >> No, >> I have some problems. Uh, I just wanted to mention that on Thursday, December 18th, myself and uh, Superintendent Salceto were able to tour both those PBLO and San Marcos high schools uh, which are in my trusty area. And uh I believe that when we go to the schools, it's always time well spent. Um we get to see the dedication and strategic thought and care that goes into the educators and administrators um and how and we get to see how
003that's reflected in the students. So when we were at Des PBLO, we uh were toured by festival the woodard uh we got to see the uh media center uh and all the students were really dialed in. It felt like a professional broadcasting office and they were preparing for a annual award ceremony. Um, and so that was really exciting to see. We also were able to see your college capstone presentation uh for all of the English classes. And so it was really enlightening to see all the students engaged and excited to share their work there. Um then at San Marcos we worked forward by uh principal dear Holddri and we uh were able to see the uh entrepreneur academy uh directed by Graham Olsen and seeing the partnerships locally and the real work experience that the
004students were having and then also learned more about their uh health care pathways that they're starting with uh their health coordinator Emily Stokes and ended with the uh visit to the Apple Leadership Academy. So, just uh um reminded us of all the unsung heroes that for themselves and to their students and the amazing work that happens every day that you know rise under the radar that we don't often see. So, looking forward to some more visits. That is my long comment. Um and so now we uh have the pleasure of a presentation by Adonante Charter School and um executive director Javier and learning innovative specialist Oliguel will provide a presentation. I will hand it over to superintendent. Thank you to the board for this uh opportunity to present um Adilante Charter School here and and
005a happy new year to you and to all. Happy new year. It's really wonderful to see you all here. Yes. Very very excited to ask uh Javier and uh um director Bolivar and our learning specialist, their learning specialist Holly Gil Gil to the podium. If you want want to come on up and join us, we'd love to have you. so I can speak about you while you're right here in in the room. um wanted to say that um board member Mary Beth Cardi and I Cammy Barnwell as well as Bridget Bobbletz at that time we were able to go um visit uh Adilante on December 9th and um just as you were sharing u madam chair about visits you can just there's something about talking about it there's something about hearing and seeing presentations and
006there's something about being there is very very special it is a very small footprint. Adilante Charter has a small footprint in terms of facility but a giant huge uh magnificent impact in terms of a footprint in other ways. Um two items that came forward for for me and for us I know Mary Beth Cardi would say the same. One is the the from the second we arrived to the minute we left. All of this was about teaching and learning. All of it. Everything that we saw, everything that we did, everything that we talked about was around the teaching and learning that's happening over time and over the years with strategy. It's really truly impressive. And the second item that we heard about and saw about was about the arts. So much emphasis on the arts
007and culture. um at Audante. So, while we were there, we said, "Oh gosh, we'd love for you to come and speak uh at the board meeting and present and share some of this incredible work." So, thank you so much for being here, and I'll turn it over to you. >> Thank you. >> I'm starting with a video here. >> Adilante is a very special school. Atlantic Charter means hard work, resilience, equity. It also means preserving heritage. When my kids walk on this campus, I feel so much trust that my kids are going to have a wonderful educational experience and they're going to have fun and they're going to be in a safe environment and a place where kindness is really emphasized. It is a place where students have the opportunity to be themselves, learn about
008their identity, community, culture is celebrated. Adalante was recognized as a California distinguished school. It's a special gem in our community. It's a place where I got to see my kids grow and learn in ways I never could imagine possible. It's the true meaning of embodying the importance of language, of valuing biculturalism, biiteracy, bilingualism. It allows children to feel pride in the language of their families. >> My kids have really embraced the Latino part of their identity. That awareness here at Alante, cultivating that awareness, that that critical consciousness has served them so well. We have teacher leaders. They're leading. They're growing. They're they're always learning. Learning happens in different ways and we're trying to meet the needs of all students. >> To look on this school and to think about where we started and where it's
009come to is like a dream come true. When you feel that you are part of your school and then you do well. We see the success of the children doing really well academically. After 25 years an example of Yes, you can. We did it. >> That's the footprint. >> That's a footprint. >> Thank you. >> Okay. I don't think I need a mic. Um, hello. Thank you so much for having us here. I am Pavier and I'm the principal, the very proud principal at Alante Ch. This is my fifth year as principal. I came right after the pandemic when we just imagine how that was coming to a new school and assessing and learning about the new school and it was a a very difficult job but very nice job and I was very lucky
010to be able to find Paul in that way that help me to to implement and do all of these that we have achieved and and this is funny. So our mission uh is the mission of Adalante Charter School is to develop biiterate multicultural students whose strong academic and cultural foundations prepare them to meaningfully participate and provide leadership in their families, their community and their world to create a more just and equitable society. And that has been the mission since we were Seth Chavez Charter School. was 25 years that we've just celebrated um this last year. And just to give a little context, if you're not familiar with dual language models, uh we serve kindergarten through sixth grade. And we're a 9010 model. So that means that in kindergarten and first grade, 90% of the instruction
011is in Spanish. It's only about an hour a day, maybe a little bit less, is in English. And then that Spanish instruction decreases while English instruction increases. You can see there on the graph. And our students are tested with state testing starting in third grade. And in third grade, 70% of their day is in Spanish, only 30% in English, and then it isn't until fifth and sixth grade that it's 5050. But still, half their day is taught in Spanish. and all of our math is taught in Stanley. >> So basically what happened during my first year was that um we had a puzzle that was on the ground and we started put started putting that puzzle together. We just had different pieces and and we put the puzzles together and Holy myself and and all
012the teacher we kind of and put in a direction on this is the growth that we have had in the last five years and I never seen in any of my 28 years career I never seen this kind of growth. which is a road that all principal which is to capital requirement is kind of going all the way I was telling Molly a few minutes ago we set that bar so high we didn't we didn't go from the 20 to the 30 to the 40 to the 50 we just jump right to 52 and 58 to 10 and we are setting the bar so high are we going to be able to maintain it well that's what we are working for as you can see we are a school of English learners we more than
01343% of our students are English learners socioeconomically disadvantage 7 almost 72% homeless 9% and a student with disability we are at about 14% right now however with all of that we have been able to put that posture together and bring what teachers and our families needed to be now in a school of of real success this is a story of success that we are um telling you right now >> and we're outperforming the county we're outperforming ing the state right now. Um this is showing in 24 25 in ELA on the left hand side, math on the right hand side. And you can see that over the last two years, we've been outperforming in both. And again, we're doing this while we are also teaching the majority of our day in Spanish until fifth and
014sixth grade where it's half the day in Spanish and half the day in English. And all of our math is taught in Spanish. Basically, this is uh showing the trajectory of our English learners. And this mirrors what we see in research. You see that dip last year and this is something that I was working with folks here at the county reaching out to CDE. We had students who were a large number of students who were reclassified and for whatever reason when the results came out they pulled them out of the English learner subgroup even though they weren't reclassified until May but they took the the test earlier. So anyway, that's where that little dip is. But when we look at the research, uh, Thomas and Collier research, I don't know if any of you are
015familiar with that, but it's like 40 years of research, millions of students, that really shows that it takes five to seven years for students to acquire proficiency in another language. And typically, you see these lower results in elementary school, especially early elementary school, and then they start to take off. And we're really seeing that with our English learners. We exist for our English learners and um it's exciting to see that that this model is really working for them. So how do we do it? >> Yeah. Um we like again I I want to name the puzzle. This is what we did. We analy we said that okay this is we're going to bring to our school. This is the support that our teachers need. This is the support that our family need. So we started
016our own model of instructional round by that a lot experience with instructional round in my community in Ventura County. So we are doing an instructional round yes for our school and is our team our own teachers are going and they are busy in their bodies. So everybody is kind of exposed to visitor and to have their card see what you are doing and what we are doing as a team because ultimately this is what is going to help everybody the entire team. also the common core in Spanish. We were making sure that our teachers who are teaching primary language is Spanish, they really know the common the the Spanish the standard and they really know how to teach that. So we brought a a person from California island a great friend of mine Dr. for
017men and he was working with each one of those uh teacher individually and by grade level to make sure that they understand the Spanish or also um the the grade level standards or instructions is standard based oral instructional are our our teacher has been working with the standards in their side every time they are planning working with during PLC and ELD has been a great thing I also brought up the first year I came we say we're not going to waste time and I brought an expert and we did some um ENV and our teachers were learning about the END using the END and they're opening their classroom to their colle and they all of that was happening and also we kind of took our our parent education to a whole new level where we
018have and I think we have another slide with that but our parents were also knowing and learning about what are the standards that the students need to need to learn. We actually have been investing a lot of time of our resources in making sure that our parents are understanding all what is important for their kids to succeed >> and the county the folks here at the county all of the people who work here uh I'm just feel so grateful for the support that we've received from the county office and we've really taken advantage of it. I think all of you here know that and But I'm just so I feel so grateful that you're here to to cheer us on and to to listen to our presentation as well. Um, another thing that we've implemented
019is uh multi-tered systems of support and we we just want to have the resources there, the support there for any student who needs it when they need it. And that has been a process of building over time. But um in terms of literacy, whether it's Spanish, English, both, math, um social emotional support, we really try to have all of that there for the student and not have some long lengthy process to get to that. Um we've also focused on teaching expected behaviors and holding students to high standards. Um still with lots of love and joy and care and um like like Susan said, we have a very small footprint. Javier likes to say we have the smallest playground in America, but we don't have issues and conflicts really with kids. We have kids who really
020do care and and um show kindness to each other. >> We have maintained a 0% patient rate. We don't send students home. Our students are they behave and they respect each other. Sometimes you know there are little kids we have some issue especially in the soccer field but it's a big culture of of friendship and understanding and respecting each other and like I say before we are in empowering the families too we have taken the the what is commonly known as ELAC or DAC we we rename it American bilingual advisory committee and I just told one of the teacher that was on the video myra Rodriguez who been a founder of the school and we say you know what we really need to have a very functioning back we need to make sure that we
021educate our parents our parents need to be participant of the kids education and she just started with that message as she has taken IBAT to a whole different level when we have every single month at least in one single school at least 40 families attending and if we are organizing any kind of workshops or or any kind of um um class for a parent we have about a 100 families coming every month for those for those meetings and it's something that I have never seen when I was in office we celebrated if we had three families in the back and and I'm not exaggerating and this is something that is being really amazing our parents are now our parents just um submitted application to be a cab presenters and we have parents presenting in the
022next cabin sometimes this parent go to cab in riverside they go to have it in other places in Bakerfield. They go, we are sending those parents and they are super super engaged with their kids education and understanding what it takes not just to say they send a Latino family, you know, I'm Latino. I grew up in a Latino family and they make sure that they send their kids every day to school and they you need to behave. I don't want to get a phone call from the teacher. But also we are taking those parents to a different level where they understand what it means to be an an educated person and like a doctor mentioned I I come from a a background in arts. I am a um I I am a musician. I used
023to play for symphony orchestra opera orchestra. My son my own child is an actor and I have supported arts in in in Adelante. We have one of the best program that you can can imagine in in in the country in our for being a school of poverty, a school of English learner. We have this amazing program. We have dance classes, we have music classes, we have a a full be program and a very beautiful art program and a kids participating in musical. We have a full grown musical program every year where we every year we had in the last five years we have lion king. We have Aladdin, we have um all of that. This year is going to be a Beauty and the Beast and our kids audition and they go through all that
024um process of auditioning for the musical and studying and starting the script starting the line to hold the cafe for people all of them but they go that's what performing is about. No performing arts artists can get into a symphony into a musical and they go through that thing too on not being part because 90 kids audition but only 40 can be accepted. So we have all of that and the performances that we have every year are just out of this planet and and we have an amazing group of teacher who take care of that of putting those musicals together with a whole audio vision and and an experience for our students and is actually besides the the talent show where all half of the school want to participate and singing and dancing and now
025we are also using um some people call it forensic Some other people call it speech and debate. We're implementing our own um program and we are we are calling it take the stage. >> They take the stage where currently where the kids are memorizing and they're analyzing passages and making interpretation that what we what we are doing this year. >> So that's really difficult to to visualize. So we just have a little less than two minute clip of our performing arts. little clips of the things that we do that just happen all the time at Alante and we would love to have you come and visit anytime and you're always welcome to these performances as well. >> This is our celebration. Every class perform the cafeteria auditorium. There's always a full house performing a music,
026dance, performing arts >> along with an art show. third recorder. I know that's third graders. I got a final for you. If you are wise, you'll listen to me till we find our praise on the path of finding in the circle. Circle of life. All is that the musicals are done bilingually as well. >> This is Thank you so much. >> We feel so honored to be here. >> Oh, thank you so very much. >> Do you have any question for us? >> Yeah. >> So, I'm g gathering your school of choice. Kids from all over the county can come to Abalante. Yes, we have a student um we have a lottery system that takes place in November and then a student from all Santa Barbara, Golita, even Ventura, Ohio. We have a few of
027them who come all the way over here to be in Atlanta and we have um a lottery for kindergarten. We only accept students in kindergarten and we have some spots open in first grade or second grade. It's hard for us to fill it up because we need to make sure that the kids is either bilingual or is being in a bilingual school in the past. So, but the lottery is only for kindergarten >> and and kindergarten it doesn't matter. We take a third of students who are bilingual, a third Spanish only and a third who are English only. So, we have that combination. >> So, I noticed uh 43% are English learners. So, 57% are not. >> Exactly. and and 50 something% are not are not English learner. They come from their homes and their
028parents uh fill out their um home language survey and they say that the first language of the child is English and and they are counted as a English and only student >> and those families have an interest obviously in their student becoming bilingual. >> Exactly. It's Kat >> K6. K6 and where do most of those students go once they leave Atlanta? >> Santa Barbara Junior High. They go the majority of them. Some others you know they uh we have the two student from Ventura who of course their family took them to Anakappa which is also a dual ina they go to Anakappa for after sixth grade and some others who if they if they live in Golita then they take it to the unit high over here depending on you know when they are bigger
029depending on transportation and all of that. >> Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for that presentation. It was it's really inspiring to see how you really address the whole child. So, you have the cultural, you have the arts, you have and then the core competency in terms of the the curriculum. So, um I have one question. Um how can I be invited to the musical? I will make sure that you get invited to the musical for sure. It's a great experience. You know, you can come and visit it. I really we love visitors and as you may suspect, I I like talking a lot and I I love when I have visitors and I like to really um show and and and be proud of what we have in the school. It's a
030small school with a super big big heart, the community and and and all of that. Our kids are always dancing. You can come any day and you're going to see them dancing or singing or doing anything art related. I really support the arts and I like it. I think is very important and and the school or I I I didn't implement that. That was already part of the school. What I have done is I'm trying to enhance it and really make sure that the teachers and the staff is supported. But I I'm holy and I are going to make sure that you are invited for the musical the rehearsal for the musical next Wednesday. I'm hoping to make some final remarks at that time. >> Be one of the trees. So, can you say you
031already say that? >> That would be wonderful because I uh saw the Lion King that you were sharing and my daughter was tree number four in the production. So, if I could be a tree also, lovely. Um I wanted to say thank you so very much. And um Javier, you were talking about liking to talk and honestly we I think we all love to hear what you have to both have to share. Um Holly, thank you both of you for acknowledging our curriculum instruction team and I wanted to you know who they are. I wanted to introduce not by all but by name or anything like that but just so that the board knows that we have our um SBCE CNI curriculum instruction division very well represented today. would you mind uh raising your hand
032if you're part of our CNI team? Yeah, wonderful. Thank you. Who supports um our our many districts and charter schools including Advante? Um but thank you. They the CNI team apparently you have you're experts in the recorder. >> I heard at a division meeting I think some some of you might have played recorder. So you might not only have trees but um for another production but thank you. Thank you. We we pres Yeah, we we presented Adilante Charter with a certificate from the board and the county office when we visited and I said to them, we didn't um greet them with an a a replicate today, but I know that you have it and it comes from all of us to you in in appreciation for all that you're doing for all the students in
033their community. Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. I know we have people exiting as well. Yeah. >> Hi. >> Entourage. Yes. >> Thank you. Thank you. Although we have a wonderful another presentation. >> Thank you everybody for being here. Yes. Thank you for >> So now to your point here. >> Yes, you >> John Leode. Um and I'll also uh start with Susan Slinton Salceto. >> Oh, thank you so much. And I thank you John for approaching the podium. Um Isaac Castro is also here in the audience. I can't see you, but I know we can see. Here we go. The southern region coordinator for the Central Coast K16 Regional Collaborative who works alongside Jo and Sarah Cameron whom you've met before right back here, our director
034of career technical education who's part of the um strategic planning uh group here with this with the uh K16 collaborative um as as our designate is also here in support. We wanted you to hear about this. SBCO is a part of it and so John thank you so much for being here. >> Uh thank you Superintendent Salceto and uh the members of the board. Thanks for in having me here. My name is John Leopold. I'm the director of the Central Coast K16 Regional Collaborative and uh I've been trying to reach out to all of our uh county office partners who which uh our collaborative is a sixcount uh collaborative from Santa Cruz to Ventura and uh all of our county offices of education are represented on our uh board. Uh, and I would say that
035Santa Barbara has is well represented. Uh, not only uh was a superintendent involved in the earliest discussions of this collaborative. Uh, but Sarah Cameron is a member of our steering committee. Uh, one of, uh, we only have four K12 districts represented on our board. One of them is a Santa Barbara school, Santa Maria. And one of our co-chairs is from Allen Hancock College. So we you'll Santa Barbara is gets is is in leadership with our group. So what are we doing? Uh coming out of COVID uh Governor Nuome invested in two uh uh major efforts. One was K16 collaboratives and the other California jobs first uh which focused on economic development. when uh our group started meeting uh back in I think 2022 uh they wanted to figure out how to use these resources to
036make a difference in the lives of students on the central coast. There are about a half million students uh that take classes uh in on along the central coast. And when uh the group uh took a look at what they saw in for educational outcomes, they saw that there were persistent educational and economic inequalities in the region and that uh Hispanic or Latino students were under reppresented in uh post-secondary enrollments. And you can see by this chart that they that uh they make up uh 65% of the students in high school but only 28% at four-year universities. And so, uh, our collaborative chose to use an equity-driven model, a collective impact model, and to see if we could move the needle and build career pathways uh for uh socially, economically disadvantaged students uh to to
037uh uh move into high wage, high impact jobs. What's uh one of the things that's unique about our collaborative is that uh the RK16 collaborative includes K12 schools, community colleges, and four-year universities as well as industry. And the idea of all these uh entities working together um seems simple but yet kind of hard. There are lots of partnerships that go on here. K12 with community colleges, four years with community co. There's all sorts of uh dual partnership, but to get everybody working together and to form what we consider strong intersegmental partnerships where there's real connections that that are actual rather than aspirational connections uh to help students move along this career path. Um is is different. And we're trying to uh uh encourage these kind of uh connections so students can navigate their way through
038uh post-secary education and onto high wage jobs. We have three key goals. One is we're working to increase the alignment of our educational programs. And as I just mentioned, it's it seems pretty straightforward but not always easy. We wanted to disrupt the inequitable systems and structures that are in our institutions. When you look at the data that we showed in the first slide, you can see that the system doesn't necessarily work for everyone. And so when we look at at what we're doing, we set some equity standards uh about the schools that we would work with to ensure that the resources that we had uh really helped uh those uh uh socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Lastly, we came excuse me uh we are seeking to build our work on the students strength assets enrich cultural and
039linguistic tradition. So not come from a deficit model but figure out what we can do um as we saw with the last school you know building on the culture rather than thinking seeing that as a draw uh drawback uh is really what is going to be successful uh along the central coast. The other part that we did is we looked at labor market data to try to uh identify high wage high impact jobs. And after looking at the uh data, we uh chose two different career areas. One was engineering and computer science and the other is healthcare. And when you look at the labor market uh information and data for the central coast, you could see that these jobs pay well uh if you finish college and um there's a lot of jobs uh especially
040in healthcare. And so you could just see here on the left hand side of the slide what the uh income level would be for Hispanic workers um uh who don't finish college but are in working in these industries and the others who do finish college. It's a significant difference and we know it's this is not a inexpensive place to live. So we have focused our career pathways on these two areas. Um to do that we worked uh to allocate uh $9.8 million uh to uh schools, districts, colleges, universities uh throughout the Central Coast region. We are supporting 10 different career pathways focused on engineering and computer science and healthcare. Uh several here in Santa Barbara County. Uh Santa Barbara has been a great recipient of funds receiving $2.6 million uh of which K12 schools received
0411.6 million of that money. Uh overall we working with 50 different institutions and over 30 employers um in new or expanding intersegmental partnerships. In addition to the that money that we put into pathways, we also uh use some additional money from the state to fund paid work-based learning opportunities here in Santa Barbara County. So it's another $78,000. There's there's more than that in the pathway, but we when we got some extra money, we put all the money in for students. This is a pictorial representation of one of those pathways. Uh this is an advanced manufacturing pathway and uh and I just want to give credit uh to Sarah Cameron uh who's played a leadership role in helping organize these institutions to create this pathway. um one that our California jobs first partner has identified as
042a highmoon uh area um advanced manufacturing is is definitely something that almost every economic report from the central coast says that we need uh students to be trained to be able to move into these jobs. there's a lot of these jobs and there are uh they pay well and as you can see the high school that so this map that we created uh was influenced by focus groups that we did with parents and students to find out uh what it is would be useful for them in choosing a pathway because career lading and career pathways is not new. um you know it's been going on for at least two decades and if you look out there there are beautifully sophisticated career pathway maps um in lots of institutions but if you're looking for uh at
043families who English may not be their first language or don't have higher education experience uh sophisticated maps al also sometimes create barriers for them understanding what's in the map and so we did uh uh simultaneously translated workshops with parents and students And they told us pretty clearly what they wanted. They didn't want acronyms. >> You know, we we love acronyms in education as in most professions. They didn't like acronyms. They uh they wanted to know what students would do at in each level of these programs rather than what degree they would get. And they wanted to know uh what kind of student supports there were and what kind of work-based learning opportunities there were. And lastly, they wanted to know uh what the job opportunities were and how much they get paid. And so if
044you look on the right hand side of this of this chart, you can see the kind of jobs that if someone moved through uh this pathway, uh they could graduate into and how much they might be able to make and how many jobs are available. On the bottom corner, you can also see the kind of partners that we have for this pathway. uh and the QR codes uh that you see at the bottom of this map all link to the the guidance counselors at their schools because not there's no one map that's going to give everybody the information. We want them to be talking to a professional at their high school or college. Uh and we want this is in some ways a teaser. We want them to become interested saying yes I want to
045do those things. I want to build that. I want to do those kind of activities. I want that kind of job. And then talk with their uh uh counselors about what classes they need to take. One of the things that uh I I'll talk about in a moment is is how we do it. But the in addition to what you see on this map, we also try we have worked to support lots of different ways to support students um uh along this pathway. So, in addition to paid work-based learning, uh there is all sorts of tutoring support. Uh in some places, we've offered transportation assistance. Uh we've paid for dual enrollment courses. Uh we tried to figure out different ways to make sure that students are successful in these pathways. Um but now that we
046funded these pathways, our work is continuing. Uh this January we have uh is one of our bianual data collection periods. This will be an important one for us because this will be our first year after funding and we start seeing the to see whether we've started moving the needle in some places uh of with the investments that we made. We do have an online dashboard uh of our data that if you go to our website uh you can uh look at um by uh the educational level by the pathway uh by demographics uh to get a better sense of what's going on in the in the uh region. The other area that we're very excited about is we're launching a major effort that we call the Central Coast Masters for Educators program. Uh this is
047a program that we're going to be starting this year where we're investing over a million dollars to help high school teachers get their single subject masters degree uh so they can teach dual enrollment in our high schools. One of the things that we saw as we funded these pathways is that there was a very uneven use of dual enrollment and we know that students who get college credit in high school are much more likely to go to college. Uh and so we have some great programs, but it's very uneven. And so we want to make sure that uh that uh every school district has the uh trained staff, the certificated staff um that uh we'll be able to partner with their community college in order to teach these college level courses while they're still in
048high school. So, we we'll be doing a lot of work and we'll be working with the Santa Barbara County Education Office uh to help ensure that Santa Barbara County teachers uh are eligible for this program. Lastly, we're working to build community partnerships over this next year to extend the reach. Our schools are great uh partners and uh the the work the schools that we work with here in Santa Barbara have been really fantastic. uh but uh there are some people who aren't may be reached by the schools and so are there community organizations or other methods that we can reach into communities uh to let people know about these pathways, families know about these pathways and so we'll be doing more of that work here in the next year. So I don't have any uh
049videos. There's no Lion King and in this in this uh but we wanted to share this information uh with you. I I do want to again recognize uh the the county office and their work, especially Sarah, who's not only been helpful to our collaborative specifically, but she's also worked very hard to support all the high school districts that are in our collaborative, and if there's ever any issues, Sarah is right there to be able uh to provide support to help those school districts rather than leaving anybody behind. And so that's greatly appreciated and and it's really helpful when you're doing this kind of effort. Isaac Castro is our southern region coordinator. He uh he works directly with the school districts and so you can talk with people personally instead of me. I'm based in Santa
050Cruz. That's all I have uh for you. I want to see if there you have any questions about the work that we've done or the work that we'll be doing in the coming year. >> Always questions. Let me start. >> So, this is great. Glad to know you exists. Uh, are you connected to the UC system? Who's funding it? >> So, the it's funded by the state of California. Um, and the the this regional group includes all that we have two UC's in this six counties, Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. We have eight community college districts and we are working with 38 K12 districts and we chose to have an equity standard that the schools that we are working with uh uh the they have to have at least 55% of the students have to
051be on free or reduced lunch or homeless or foster youth. most of the schools in in uh the region who qualify for that are much higher numbers. Um but but you know $10 million seems like a lot of money until you divide it up at six counties and 50 institutions. So we decided to focus on the the the school districts with uh the highest need >> uh and the most socially economically uh uh disadvantaged students. We we chose an allocation system that was not competitive but collaborative. the the three partners, we required that the K12 district, community college, and four-year university come in together and uh that if they came in together, they were guaranteed funding and there we had an equity allocation based on a a base funding and then u there were equity
052allocations based on the size of the student body and uh what the unduplicated count was uh for uh free or reduced lunch etc. >> You said it that it guarantee funding for what? Uh well the the to support these career pathways that we created >> whatever whatever that named right. >> Yeah. So we didn't if if the if the school if the partners came in uh what we were trying to assess is did they have actual strong or were they committed to forming strong intersegmental partnerships. So we don't want a high school to offer classes to introduce uh students to healthcare careers. We we want a dual enrollment course so that student is earning college credit to towards their so that's that's moves it from the aspirational like we hope that they go to college
053and learn about health to earning credit while they're in high school that will hopefully get them to college. >> Let me just say that I'm sort of don't be I will definitely be on your website tonight. So, uh, relatively new to the sport, but not new to education and the challenges in education. This gives me hope from the standpoint of, so the the question I've been asking a lot this past year is why does it feel like education is not a priority to the state of California? And then I hear something like this and I go, well, okay, this group seems to be really focused and talking about things. Um, but it is a concern. I mean, given who we are in the nation, uh, how it is that we're not in the top five
054in everything. I I'm as much as I think I know about education, as much as I've been around, I don't understand that one. Uh, so I'd love to just >> Well, I mean, I think that one of the things that we we're trying to do and and what if you look at at uh the governor's report on career education is that we have a lot of silos, >> you know, and and what K12 does is great and what community colleges does great. I'm a former community college trustee and what the four-year universities I work with them. I'm based at a at a university. Uh but uh too often and we found this as we as we work this because uh getting people to agree to be a pathway that's a that's that's a first step
055and that was helpful but getting them to align their courses. So this you know that if if we're trying to move the needle and move students who haven't historically gone to college now we want them to go to college or university. uh you have to work to really align the system because anybody who's had a student or has gone through the post-secary education knows that it's a labyrinth and it's there are lots of places where you run into obstacles where you got to go back to the start where you got to and so what we're trying to do is get everybody to align so students have a clearer shot to the end. So there's a pathway for instance that we have in San Bonito County that um kids are going to start taking uh college
056level courses in their sophomore year in high school. >> And when they graduate because it's a rural school district, it's it's they're far away from everything. And so um when they graduate high school, two more years at CSU Monterey Bay, and they have a megatronics degree, which is a a very useful degree in tech these days. and so that there's a greater likelihood that that student will actually get that mechatronics degree because they've earned enough college credit. So, we're trying to figure out creative ways to make that happen. And, you know, I I I appreciate what the governor's uh has funded and talked about and had the reports have made clear that we need to work together. I know that in career education there are a couple different streams of funding. Sarah's got to fill
057out multiple uh uh applications every year to get funding from the Golden State Pathway program, from the CTI program, from the K12 strong workforce program. Um not as often with the uh K16. We we made a little bit easier. Uh but we're now trying to get all these programs to work together. So we've uh formed a partnership with Golden State Pathway Program, their technical assistance center. So now all the the GSP programs uh meet with our regional leadership groups. We're trying to to get everybody to work together to row together. We're also working with the community college consortium who give out the K12 uh strong workforce programs to better align what they're doing with what we're doing. So, it's it's maddening for school districts the kind of data that they need to create and the
058things they need to track for all these different funding sources and if there's a way for uh for entities to work together um so they can focus on providing the education rather than simply documenting the education u that that will be create I think we think stronger programs. >> Hope that answered that we >> that helped thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Leopold, for coming and making this presentation. Um, similar to board member Walker, just really understanding and having um hope and inspiration about how these pathways are making connecting education, also building down these silos um to make it possible um is encouraging. Um, a couple questions that I have. Um, have there been any considerations on um, the proliferation of AI and how that's impacting white collar jobs and how that and in
059the creation of pathway development for the corpsium. >> Yes, some of the pathways have elements uh, that are really looking at AI for some of our tech uh, pieces. I also know that the strong workforce program has that as a requirement that they that they look at at least in the Bay Area, I think here in South Central as well, uh to to incorporate uh something around AI as part of their pathways. clearly uh something better or worse. I'll let someone else decide that um that that students need to be educated about it and learn how to use it and figure out how it's going to um uh support their uh future career aspirations because we all know that the the the student who took a coding program 15 years ago, that job won't exist
060in three years. and uh you have to figure out how um they can uh maintain their critical skills uh to be successful in the workplace because it changes so often. >> Then um how do students become a part of the program? So when you're looking at the the partners and the school the educ the educational ed a agencies that are part of it, how do how do you actually get students to participate? Well, that's um the the high schools and the community colleges do the recruitment and uh the the strength of the pathway hopefully is an incentive for students to be involved. Uh some of what we've uh funded is also educational evenings, family engagement nights, uh visits to employers or colleges or universities to help educate um uh community members about and their families
061and students about what the opportunities are for them. And so uh that's the other part. We want to work with community partners to again extend that reach. So, so, uh, we are we are hopefully getting deep into communities, um, rather than than just having something that's, you know, broadly spread, uh, we wanted to go deep, uh, in order to make it work. And so, so we one of the things we talk about in our regional leadership meetings is what kind of recruitment's going on. One of the things we'll be looking for in our data is to get a sense of who's in these pathways because we know that the career pathways have been going on and um but when you look at who's involved, who persists, who graduates, >> uh there is a very clear
062demographic uh breaks there. And so what we're trying to do is shift that a little bit uh to make it more equal. Um and that's the challenge. >> Right. Awesome. And one last question. Sorry. And uh I noticed uh the information for the different demographics in the school in the students and um how do African American students fit within the program and the metrics for the the Northern Costia? Well, um I pointed out in the earlier slide about Hispanic or Latino students, but but we are not allowed to um uh only limit our activity to one race. So we we have this umbrella of socially economically disadvantaged students. So whatever uh race or ethnicity, we're going to serve those students. Uh the schools that we work with have a higher percentage of those students. Um,
063and so, uh, we collect the demographic data, uh, on them. I can't remember off the top of my head, um, where we see, you know, Monterey County, we see a larger African-American, uh, population than we do in, let's say, Santa Cruz County or San Bonito County. Uh, and I just don't remember what the statistics are off the top, but if you look at the if you go to our website and you can go to the the the data dashboard, it'll tell you specifically. Any other things? Well, thank you so much for this presentation, answering all of our questions. I know we had a lot. >> Thank you. I look forward to continue working with with the county education office, especially as we do this dual enrollment uh masters for educators program. And I want to
064express my um thanks also to Superintendent Salceto, who as I say has was early involved with this and has been a great supporter of ours. So, thank you. All righty. So, so now we'll go to the superintendence report. Thank you. Thank you so much. I want to start with uh the first paragraph that I wrote in the report which is that January is the board recognition month and let's just take a I wanted to take a moment to express my thanks to each of you for all that you do to support not only your trustee area not only the county education office myself and team but the entire count's um children and families and educators. what you do by your support, by being here, by making decisions, by your attention, your good questions, your great
065thinking, your perspectives, that is support. And you do you do that and so much more. And um it's you're you're a part of a a body that is is essential for public education. And I I want to say thank you. Thank you very very much for all that you do. >> You're welcome. And thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. I have a few updates for you. um beyond what's in the report today um one a chief technology officer we had talked about a CTO um for many months now and um through Steve um Torres and the human resources division and many others we now have hired um Brandon Weber to uh join us he comes he's a CTO right now chief technology officer in Lancaster school district and will be starting in the week
066of January 19th right after Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. So really excited to have him on board and will of course introduce you. Um one other thing uh we all you all uh completed an ethics training as as did I and um it when I did that I thought you know I want to remind our board about something and it just really was it's not anything that anyone did but it was just a good reminder as I was going through this training. We've been talking a lot about conferences that we've been going. Some conferences we're thinking about going traveling to and occasionally when we go to conferences, there are sponsored events that happen, sponsored dinners and things like that. So, just wanted to remind you to when you are hosted at a a dinner, you
067want to mark that down somewhere on your calendar because when the um form 700 comes back around again, you'll want to mark that as off if it's $50 or more. I I say that because it's just something that we we're talking about. So, it's really important for for you to mark. Okay. >> Um then let's go to today. Today the governor uh provided his state of the state address. Um I many all of us were probably in meetings and didn't get a chance to hear it hear it or digest it. I'm still processing it myself. But I say that because it'll be coupled with tomorrow the governor's proposed budget. So you have the state of the state and and then a proposed budget. And so I share with you only some top level highlevel summary
068type of items so that when you're reading from the different list serves that you are part of you're going to see um uh what some people are categorizing as um record education investments. So more investment in education. So, a positive forward area than a backward area. Goes right to what board member Walker was just addressing. So, you're going to hear about more investments in education. Um, in fact, I think there was a a higher than previously forecasted budget higher at a rate of 42 billion is what they are saying. So, um there's that. The other piece that I think is really intriguing, I am again processing it. I'm actually considering what I what I think is favorable and what I think might be some pros and cons has to do with this um shift in
069education governance at the state level. So, in education governance, you often hear about the governor, you hear about the state board of education, you hear about the uh California Department of Education, and you'll hear about the state superintendent of public instruction. All four of these entities have have a say in terms of how education is rolled out in California. There are shifts happening right now and you're going to hear about them as you hear about the budget as you hear about the governor's state of the state there um he is considering um or the state is considering having the CDE move under the governor um the state superintendent having different sort of governance than they do now having the state board run the CDE so it's a it's a it's a shift and I just
070I say all that to you rather than say what I think about it yet now. So saying I'm still processing my own pros and cons is I wanted you to heighten the awareness for you. So as you're reading it, as you see about it, learn about it, know that that's new. It's new. It just got released today. It's backed up by studies and research, but the announcement came today and now people are going to start unpacking. What would that mean? Um, so I I' I'd rather not editorialize right now about it, but just to share share that with you. >> So, can I just ask you? So, this is something that obviously was proposed and has already been passed by the state legislature or >> No, it's just being posed actually. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah.
071And in fact, one of the questions um Mr. blocker is whether or not any of these proposed changes in governments need legislative changes because and that's a question. So again, I'm not going to editorialize. I just don't know enough yet about it. But what I do know is that there have been proposed changes for many years in many different um election cycles to potentially um not have our state superintendent be an elected official. that's just been thought about in the past and it never passed. It's always been an elected official. >> Um, but that would need to be have legislative changes in order to change that that uh uh role. Um, but this these other changes that are being proposed I think may not need legislative changes and that's something to lean into as well.
072Okay. So, um, any any other questions on what I just gave an update on? Wanted to really heighten the awareness more more than anything. All right. Well, I I understand that um you know, celebrating little and big things are really important. This is neither little nor big. I'll just say that tomorrow is Guy Walker's birthday. So, I should >> celebrate that celebrate that and say happy birthday to you. >> Thank you. >> Happy birthday. >> I didn't know that. Oh my god. >> Should we sing to you too? >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> You know what? I apologize. Yeah. And again, this Uh, and I don't know if there's much to say on this. Susan, did I just read here something? Uh, federal funding, small rural schools, California, some money. Who is that going
073to? Who's that affecting Central Coast? >> Yes. And I and I might prompt um Steve to and Nicole to help me with this one as well, but I'll I'll start speaking about it. Actually, there's rural funding that that the in the county the county does receive some and it has to do with being connected with I believe with Los Padres's um for us but I could be wrong here and um and we will we if I'm correct about this we actually annually bring up the the uh revenue to the board each year so that you can see but can you fill in any more on that that one specific with specifics Nicole or Steve or should we come back to that And if not we can reserve for next time. That's something caught my attention
074that >> yeah it's the forest preserve funds which are a calculation that's allocated to us at the county level and we distribute it to the districts according to the square footage uh of their district that resides in the forest preserve area and the number of students attending that live in that area. And so it's two calculations and we combine them to distribute those funds. Uh that funding ceased this year. So previous prior to this year, we would bring the funding amount and the funding formula to you for approval. We did not do that this year. That money was not received. So what I can do at the next board meeting is bring the last allocation distribution so you can see which districts were affected and how much money um that they were receiving. So, so
075the thing that caught my attention small rural schools and I think you sort of just answered is a calculation or something that determines what is a small rural school. >> Uh if I were to say how many small rural schools do we have in the county? >> Do we have a general sense of you know I know that may fluctuate some but do we is it a constant we or does it change all the time? >> Yeah. So that might be a different definition. Um I'd have to look into small rural schools definition. We have um we have we have different criteria, different categories. to see exactly which one that that is Nicole Panley. I all >> I can look at that maybe to see exactly what information you got so I can pull up
076that exact title and make sure you know we give you that classification >> and let me thank you so much and thanks so much for asking the question and we'll come back to you with more specificity but I will say I appreciate the the um the fact that it really is different answer based on what question we're asking. So, for example, when we talk about rural schools, I I I recall a couple of years ago, there was a change to um high school start times. >> You couldn't start until after 8:30. And they said, but but if you're a small rural school, you can apply to not have that be your start time. and you you could apply and and it wasn't based on a set criteria that there isn't one there that is called
077this is what how you qualify for a small rural school. They said you tell us if you're a small rural school. So that's why sometimes these definitions are a little bit shifty depending on which >> what we're talking about specifically. So, we want to go back to this one specifically, the rural school, small rural school, federal funding, look at the precise definition, and tell you specifically how many of our schools actually um uh fit under that definition. So, we'll come back to that one. Yes. >> Thank you. >> Um I can just uh piggyback on that. off the top of your head, is it anything substantial in terms of the funding that isn't being uh given this year or you know when um if we're talking about the forest reserve funds and again this is
078a that could be the same it might need might be different but when we're talking about the forest reserve funding is very very small um and we bring that to the board and we would share that with you the board the calculation and and where it goes those. Um, so I I need to look back into that because I I I don't want to be conflating the forest reserve funds and the small rural funds. Uh, >> I think like uh Leopold just said, you know, 10 million seems like a lot of money until you have to divide it up amongst >> and for some reason I want to say it's $40 million to the state of California. >> Okay. How many if it's small a rule, how many are those >> correct? Yeah. >> In
079the state. Great questions and we'll we would love to come back and and provide you with that update so we can be specific and not guessing. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. >> No problem at all. Thank you. So, our next item would be the consent agenda, but because we don't have a quorum, we're not able to uh do that nor uh the action items. So, the next uh portion of the agenda um are the information items. So we had the personnel report, we had the Williams uniform complaint complaints quarterly report and so just want to see if there's any questions or comments on that um on those items. Okay. So then um we would just have to move to our future a agenda items. Uh and there will be a presentation on uh human trafficking by
080the district attorney next month um on our February 12th meeting. And our next meeting is going to be held in Santa Maria. Yay. Um so uh if there aren't any other questions or comments, then I can get a motion to adjourn the meeting. I'll move >> and a second. All right. Can we get a vote of the flavor? >> Any opposed? >> All right. Well, then uh meeting adjourned. Thank you.